A large white mansion sat itself in between the Royal Guard housing for the guards of only the Faun family, the richest family in Port Faun, and the even larger brick mansion of the Faun’s. The ominous mansion has golden colored window frames, each with a coiling snake etched into the bottom of it with some sort of knife. Arch like wooden doors were opened once or twice for busy maids to run out to complete jobs for the Maxwell family. A single window was open; a beautiful sound flowing out of it that shocked most of the Port.

A doll like girl of tem years sat stiffly at a grand piano, her fingers gracefully flying across the thin white and black panels to create a beautiful, heart breaking song. Sunlight from the ajar window hit one side of her face, leaving the other half in the shadows. Her blue eyes concentrated on the non-wrinkled piece of parchment with careful, neat, feather inked music symbols. Her dirty blonde hair was tied away from her face, creating a straight braid the coiled down her back, stop at the same area of where her elbows were. A light azure colored piece of lace looked like the same creature on her family crest- a snake- held it all together neatly.

The snake was chosen when the great, great ancestor of the girl’s family was searching for a home, and saw a rare blue colored snake. It was quickly chosen for the fact the ancestral was called sly, cold, quick, and dozens of other traits like those of a snake’s. The majority of his family, the Maxwell’s, were like a snake.

Hovering over the girl was a towering woman with a face that seemed to be puckered from the taste of an extremely sour lemon. Speaking of her face- it seemed to be covered with fifty thick layers of white powder, topped off with ruby red blush on her cheeks and a deep blood like red lipstick. The sour woman’s dress was tightly wrapped around her top half, like a snake and its prey, and then the bottom puffed away from her body, one of the most expensive looks of then. The woman was the musician’s mother. Katherine Maxwell.

Katherine stared at her daughter's fingers as they danced from key to key, the corners of her lips slightly raising from the gawking, shocked people out the window, and then quickly falling at the sight of the some of the citizen’s of Faun Port’s mouths turning into smiles from- enjoyment from the music? Her thin fingers with deep red nail polish dropped the black fan with red roses it was holding. Sharply Katherine began to speak,

“Lilia. Stop that nonsense you call music, and only fool pirates would enjoy, and help you mother pick up her fan. I shouldn’t have to crawl around on the floor for it.”

Lilia’s music abruptly stopped at the sound of her mother’s orders. With a single reply of, “Of course mother.” She gingerly raised her skirt bottom so it didn’t get dirty, and leaned to the ground. Lilia snatched up the fan, closing her eyes pained, as if she wanted to snap it into neat halves and then give it back. With a tint of hatred in her eyes, Lilia gave her mother the fan.

“I’m leave for the market. Make sure you and Lucas set us dinner. Ta-ta~”An hour later Katherine left the house. She wore a navy blue cloak with a, of course, snake wrapped around the bottom. Her eyes darted from side to side checking that no one saw her leaving her household as she stepped off the comfort of her stone walkway. It was a custom of hers, just in case a pirate was around to try and steal from her, even if they were on the water most of the time. Quickly Katherine maneuvered through the rough streets of Port Dawn, with people with all different deeds to be performed milling around. Everyone person besides Katherine was going as slow at possible, moving as if some sort of curse was casted upon them so they’d get to their destination as slow as humanly possible.

Stopping dead in her tracks, Katherine wrapped her hands around a large golden knocker on an arch way entrance much more elegant than hers. A maid with wide scared eyes opened the door, wearing a simple shapeless green dress with a dirt apron. Katherine rolled her eyes at the woman’s straw like brown hair messily tied into a low hanging ponytail.

“Madame Katherine, I am terribly sorry for you to step in ever so gracefully at Mistress Cathleen’s manner only to see the withering appearance of me.” The maid curtsied; she had gone through this routine too many times for her to slip up the greeting.

“Well,” Katherine sighed making a big show out of it, “My sister does have a poor choice of work uniform. But you make it worse. Announce my arrival, then, go hide yourself somewhere, maybe at the docks? With pirates maybe?”

The maid turned on her heels, “Madame Katherine has arrived at the Manor of Mistress Cathleen! All bow in her presence! She is-“

Katherine pushed past the maid and entered the mansion. Behind her back, the maid stuck her tongue out at the cold hearted Katherine, and then she scurried off to go gossip with the other maids. Katherine covered her face neatly with her fan, and let her the corners of her lips rise to create a cold smile.

“Sister? You seem far too beautiful, wait no, excuse me not beautiful, lady like too be so lazily stretched across the couch like such an oaf.”

A large lump seemed to giggle on the couch.

“Katherine, Katherine, Katherine. You have returned to calling me sister? What honorable thing have I done to get the visit of such a lovely sibling?” Sarcasm was dripping from every word Cathleen spoke to her sister.

Katherine dropped her fan with not a single daughter to pick it up.

“Cathy- I messed up the plan. I married Luke- you remember him? The boasting, scrawny man? The lovesick fool? Well he gave me- ch- ch- chill”

Cathleen gasped. No sarcasm tainted this reaction of hers.

“He gave you a child?”

Katherine shook her head, pained.

“Two!? Two children!? Katherine! You messed up the entire Maxwell plan!” Cathleen’s plump cheeks were getting rosier by the minute.

“You’re suppose to marry a rich man, drain away all his money, force him to run away, and out of our family’s worst enemy and hated type of person, become a pirate! Then you marry happily to the correct man and have children! But you’re an old woman now with children! You’ll never be married again!”

Katherine looked out the stained glass window behind the two sisters, it was a picture of a young woman dancing with a man.

“You are married Cathleen. You love children.” Katherine muttered. “You cannot seem to have them though. Take mine, please?”

Cathleen looked up at Katherine with shock.

“I’ll take them back after I marry. I just need someone to look over them until then!”

Cathleen bit down on her lip and nodded as she began to speak. “I’ll do it.”

And so, Lucas and Lilia, the twins, were now in the care of Katherine’s sister, Cathleen. Quickly the two sisters signed a piece of parchment to seal the deal, Katherine’s face emotionless. They were going to make the switch at the chime of midnight.

Katherine flung open the doors of her mansion with out a hint of grace. “Children! Come here!” Katherine’s face wasn’t filled with sorrow, depression, or pain. Maybe relief? Maybe her conscience had died along with her first husband. Lucas and Lilia appeared in front of Katherine side by side, hesitant to come any closer to her than a yard. They both stood on the first step of the grand staircase, Lucas’s hands clutching the railing so tightly his knuckles were turning white. The children were shocked to see their mother home already, for the fact they hadn’t set the table yet they might be in a lot of trouble.

She clapped her hands together, the first genuine happy smile creeping upon Katherine’s face in years slowly raised the corners of her mouth. Raising her arms above her head, Katherine threw back her head laughing.

“Tonight, we shall have a grand feast! All maids and caretakers please arouse them children! Then go take my finest traveling bags, and pack everything you want!” With a final insane laugh, Katherine glided over to the next room. Lucas blinked and had a devilish smile on his face.

“She’s gone mad.” Lilia plainly said.

“Maybe this is a good chance to find father?”

“Luke!” Lilia said sharply, her eyes widening, “Do you wish for Katherine to send us away?”

“Honestly sister? You won’t call mother anything but Katherine?”

Lilia’s eyes narrowed, her face going deadly.

“Luke. You must think intelligently. Play the game correctly. I will not warm up to that woman. Now go pack. I don’t think your fit to be aloud to run around screaming about our plans!”

I've said this on another piece of your writing, nagging for comments after, what - fourteen minutes? is not good. I'm in the process of reading it right now, and I can say this: you're much better of a writer than most kids your age that I see. It's really good.

Cathleen hovered over Lucas, her eyes narrowed as he read his book, watching him slowly flipping the pages, or when he sounded at the words wrong. She thwacked the table spot beside him loudly, making him crane his neck to get a good look at her.

“My dear, can’t you read?"

Lucas shook his head side to side. Cathleen sighed deeply, finally figuring out why her sister said he was the hard one to teach.

“Words like, ‘No Aunt Cathleen’ or, ‘I am very sorry, but I haven’t a clue how to read’ are nice.”

As she scolded him, Cathleen’s eyes narrowed into slits. Everyone still wonders how she was the one who loved children in the family, and how the others acted must have had acted for her to be categorized as that.

“But, I will let it be excused. You’re dropping swords lesson, and then we shall get you a tutor. I think this will fit into your daily routine quite nicely. You will become a star reader, maybe even a famous poet!” Cathleen heartily laughed, ignoring the mumbles that came from Lucas’s mouth.

As Cathleen ran around the house, which really looked like a sad little waddle, going out to find a tutor, Lilia sat in a blank white room, the only color in the rooms entire the wooden floors and two chairs. A woman with a shapeless black dress was filling up one of the chairs; her face seemed to be frozen in the same scowl every moment. Her eyes concentrated on the thin, silver needle she held daintily in her possession. Threading it through the middle of her work, she finished it an elapsed time of about ten moments. Lilia wasn’t even looking at the woman, but she was just looking at the bleak wall of the wood that stared back at her. In a sharp, amused tone the woman began to speak.

“Lilia. Which thread did I forget to weave?”

Lilia began to speak, but the woman laughed cruelly and cut her off.

“That was a rhetorical question. A test of if you were paying attention to when I spoke. When someone asks you this, you cock your head sweetly and smile. Then you begin to speak and say, ‘No, Madame. You did an absolutely perfect job.’ Do you understand me girl?”

Lilia glared at the woman her eyes full of hatred as she began to speak. But even so, she cocked her head and smiled.

“I do ma’am. I am sorry for ever being disrespectful.”

The strict woman nodded, still scowling. She glided out of the room, her graying brown hair followed behind her. That was a signal for Lilia to continue her quilt work. Lilia began to, not giving up so she could show off to the stuck up woman when she finished. Time after time, Lilia had to pull back her hand after pricking herself with her own sharp needle.

“I don’t even get why I need to learn this!” Lilia said, appalled, “I’m not going to be one of those stuffy house wives who cleans and cooks! I’m going to make a difference!”

Lilia threw down the ragged piece of fabric onto the floor. She watched it as it slowed floated down to earth, until it the ground she didn’t begin talking again,

“Maybe I can go help in the kitchen. Anything would be much better then pricking myself with this demon of a sort’s needle!”

Making sure she stomped on the pathetic little left of scarp of fabric, Lilia walked out of the room to the kitchens.

Lucas’s blue eyes glinted mischievously as his new reading tutor walked in. It was a plump man in his late thirties wearing a neatly put on wig, a navy blue coat, and a pair of white tights. His voice sounded even more stuck up then his appearance,

“I am Sir Fredrick Heinz. I will only respond to that title, or Sir Heinz the Second. I am here to teach you to read and infer, so you can become an intelligent man. Do you understand?”

Lucas easily zoned out what Sir Fredrick was saying and only one thought rang through his head. Echoing several times, he was able to hear it no matter how many times it sounding as if the sound was finally fleeting. Almost like a siren.Easy prank.

Easy prank.

Lilia won’t agree till she sees him though… Oh either way, this is going to be excellent.

Lilia walked to the kitchen, wearing the most informal dress she could find in her what seemed never ending closet of a rainbow assortment of tight, breathe stealing dresses that seemed like they were so small in some parts, they were really meant for some sort of doll. She picked a plain black skirt that went down to her ankles, topped with a black shirt with roses and dozens of flower sown in near the circular neck, with white sleeves. Her hair was sloppily thrown into a bobbing ponytail braid that hung loosely near her neck.

The walk to the kitchen seemed to be the longest walk in Lilia’s life. She barely had any idea about the dirty work of the fabulous looking meals that were performed, let alone where it was. When she asked a paid help person, they would just roll their eyes at her, point in a random direction, and go away. On the luxury floors on the mansion Lilia was treated with respect, but down here, she got nothing but disrespect. It was really confusing for someone who came from a life of being completely cared for. Grabbing an apron hanging from a hook beside a large glass door, Lilia pushed the door open.

The first thing she noticed was maid who greeted her mothers weeks ago. Of course, neither maid nor Lilia knew which was which, so Lilia just walked over to the woman as she made a thick, creamy tomato soup for the ill librarian. Her cheeks had round circles of white flour, covering her blushed face and poking, playful freckles which annoyed the strict head maid. Lilia was thrown out of the loop when the maid spoke,

“What are you doing here?” She hissed as she threw in a pinch of salt, “You have to have something better to do like clean, instead of standing with your mouth so wide open you could choke on a fly!”

Lilia blinked and widened her eyes.

“You’re aloud to speak to people that way?”

“Of course you are! To get something done you must! Precise, careful timing counts as well!”

The maid laughed heartily, as if she was talking with one of her own, which she really thought she was.

“You sure you’re not my long lost daughter sweetie? I’m Rose! I mean you sound exactly like me when it co-com-c- I ir-ir-ironed that dress this morn’in! Why are you wear’in it?!” A strange accent escaped from the multi-tasking maid when she got worried. Narrowing her eyes she pointed the dripping soup wooden spoon at Lilia’s chin,

“Child, we’d both be skinned if you were caught wear’in that- and I don’t…”

Lilia glared the woman cutting her off.

“This is my dress. I’m not a servant, mind you! I am an honorable, well blooded woman of the Maxwell ancestral blood line! I am not, going to spend entire day pricked with dumb witted needles! I want to be normal and cook for once in my life, instead of being treated like a royal … royal… jerk! But I do want respect!”

Rose stared at Lilia for a moment and went down on her knees to be at eye level with her. She wrapped her arms around Lilia and smiled, then warmly said,

“Lilia, dear, we’ve got so much to teach you. Like how to live happy like me… Don’t raise your eyebrows honey! I may seem weary and angry, but I’d rather be that than fake and materialistic like most of my past mistresses! But let me tell you one thing,”

Lilia stared at Rose hungrily, as if any info would be greater than anything; a single tear slipped from her eye. She hadn’t be hugged, or called ‘sweetie’ or ‘dear’ in years. Just, ‘Lilia’ nothing nickname like, just the name her treacherous mother gave her. No friendly pet name from a goofy guy. No best friend to get the name from, no one, Lilia never had anyone but herself, and if she really thought about it, maybe Lucas in a way. But now she had someone whose life had more involved to it then precious clothes and money, or for Lucas, pranks.

Rose cared about living right. Not rich. But happy.

Rose stopped hugging Lilia and looked her in the eye, wagging a bony finger in her face... “You know that name isn’t appreciated down here as much as you’d think it’d get you everywhere outside the walls? Well here, it’s a whole underground world ran by two types of people. Mistresses and Servants.”

It's not as long looking as the other one because of the amount of speech- the next chapter will be more focused towards Lucas. He doesn't has as much things going on during his day, so there will be a lot of description.

First off: again, really, you're so much better than anyone I've seen at your age.

Secondly, I know it's supposed to be a castle and everything, but everyone just seems so... regal. Snotty rich people are everywhere, and I admit, they do get some realistic speaking, but in my opinion you should tone down the formality of the characters--they're a bit too formal, even in the regal setting.